Access over 20 million homework & study documents

LAPORAN KASUS III MODUL ORGAN MATA DAN THT SEORANG LAKI-LAKI USIA 18 TAHUN DATANG DENGAN KELUHAN TEL

Content type
User Generated
Type
Study Guide
Rating
Showing Page:
1/49
G.R. No. L-19650 September 29, 1966CALTEX
(PHILIPPINES), INC., petitioner-appellee,
vs.
ENRICO PALOMAR, in his capacity as THE POSTMASTER
GENERAL, respondent-appellant.
In the year 1960 the Caltex (Philippines) Inc. (hereinafter
referred to as Caltex) conceived and laid the groundwork for a
promotional scheme calculated to drum up patronage for its oil
products. Denominated "Caltex Hooded Pump Contest", it calls for
participants therein to estimate the actual number of liters a hooded
gas pump at each Caltex station will dispense during a specified period.
Employees of the Caltex (Philippines) Inc., its dealers and its
advertising agency, and their immediate families excepted,
participation is to be open indiscriminately to all "motor vehicle
owners and/or licensed drivers". For the privilege to participate, no fee
or consideration is required to be paid, no purchase of Caltex products
required to be made. Entry forms are to be made available upon
request at each Caltex station where a sealed can will be provided for
the deposit of accomplished entry stubs.
A three-staged winner selection system is envisioned. At the
station level, called "Dealer Contest", the contestant whose estimate is
closest to the actual number of liters dispensed by the hooded pump
thereat is to be awarded the first prize; the next closest, the second; and
the next, the third. Prizes at this level consist of a 3-burner kerosene
stove for first; a thermos bottle and a Ray-O-Vac hunter lantern for
second; and an Everready Magnet-lite flashlight with batteries and a
screwdriver set for third. The first-prize winner in each station will
then be qualified to join in the "Regional Contest" in seven different
regions. The winning stubs of the qualified contestants in each region
will be deposited in a sealed can from which the first-prize, second-
prize and third-prize winners of that region will be drawn. The regional
first-prize winners will be entitled to make a three-day all-expenses-
paid round trip to Manila, accompanied by their respective Caltex
dealers, in order to take part in the "National Contest". The regional
second-prize and third-prize winners will receive cash prizes of P500
and P300, respectively. At the national level, the stubs of the seven
regional first-prize winners will be placed inside a sealed can from
which the drawing for the final first-prize, second-prize and third-prize
winners will be made. Cash prizes in store for winners at this final
stage are: P3,000 for first; P2,000 for second; Pl,500 for third; and
P650 as consolation prize for each of the remaining four participants.
Foreseeing the extensive use of the mails not only as amongst the
media for publicizing the contest but also for the transmission of
communications relative thereto, representations were made by Caltex
with the postal authorities for the contest to be cleared in advance for
mailing, having in view sections 1954(a), 1982 and 1983 of the Revised
Administrative Code, the pertinent provisions of which read as follows:
SECTION 1954. Absolutely non-mailable matter. No
matter belonging to any of the following classes, whether
sealed as first-class matter or not, shall be imported into the
Philippines through the mails, or to be deposited in or
carried by the mails of the Philippines, or be delivered to its
addressee by any officer or employee of the Bureau of Posts:
Written or printed matter in any form advertising,
describing, or in any manner pertaining to, or conveying or
purporting to convey any information concerning any
lottery, gift enterprise, or similar scheme depending in whole
or in part upon lot or chance, or any scheme, device, or
enterprise for obtaining any money or property of any kind
by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations,
or promises.
"SECTION 1982. Fraud orders.Upon satisfactory evidence that
any person or company is engaged in conducting any lottery, gift
enterprise, or scheme for the distribution of money, or of any real or
personal property by lot, chance, or drawing of any kind, or that any
person or company is conducting any scheme, device, or enterprise for
obtaining money or property of any kind through the mails by means of
false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, the
Director of Posts may instruct any postmaster or other officer or
employee of the Bureau to return to the person, depositing the same in
the mails, with the word "fraudulent" plainly written or stamped upon
the outside cover thereof, any mail matter of whatever class mailed by
or addressed to such person or company or the representative or agent
of such person or company.
SECTION 1983. Deprivation of use of money order system and
telegraphic transfer service.The Director of Posts may, upon
evidence satisfactory to him that any person or company is engaged in
conducting any lottery, gift enterprise or scheme for the distribution of
money, or of any real or personal property by lot, chance, or drawing of
any kind, or that any person or company is conducting any scheme,
device, or enterprise for obtaining money or property of any kind
through the mails by means of false or fraudulent pretenses,
representations, or promise, forbid the issue or payment by any
postmaster of any postal money order or telegraphic transfer to said
person or company or to the agent of any such person or company,
whether such agent is acting as an individual or as a firm, bank,
corporation, or association of any kind, and may provide by regulation
for the return to the remitters of the sums named in money orders or
telegraphic transfers drawn in favor of such person or company or its
agent.
The overtures were later formalized in a letter to the Postmaster
General, dated October 31, 1960, in which the Caltex, thru counsel,
enclosed a copy of the contest rules and endeavored to justify its
position that the contest does not violate the anti-lottery provisions of
the Postal Law. Unimpressed, the then Acting Postmaster General
opined that the scheme falls within the purview of the provisions
aforesaid and declined to grant the requested clearance. In its counsel's
letter of December 7, 1960, Caltex sought a reconsideration of the
foregoing stand, stressing that there being involved no consideration in
the part of any contestant, the contest was not, under controlling
authorities, condemnable as a lottery. Relying, however, on an opinion
rendered by the Secretary of Justice on an unrelated case seven years
before (Opinion 217, Series of 1953), the Postmaster General
maintained his view that the contest involves consideration, or that, if
it does not, it is nevertheless a "gift enterprise" which is equally banned
by the Postal Law, and in his letter of December 10, 1960 not only
denied the use of the mails for purposes of the proposed contest but as
well threatened that if the contest was conducted, "a fraud order will
have to be issued against it (Caltex) and all its representatives".
Caltex thereupon invoked judicial intervention by filing the
present petition for declaratory relief against Postmaster General
Enrico Palomar, praying "that judgment be rendered declaring its
'Caltex Hooded Pump Contest' not to be violative of the Postal Law,
and ordering respondent to allow petitioner the use of the mails to
bring the contest to the attention of the public". After issues were
joined and upon the respective memoranda of the parties, the trial
court rendered judgment as follows:
In view of the foregoing considerations, the Court holds
that the proposed 'Caltex Hooded Pump Contest' announced
to be conducted by the petitioner under the rules marked as
Annex B of the petitioner does not violate the Postal Law and
the respondent has no right to bar the public distribution of
said rules by the mails.
The respondent appealed.
The parties are now before us, arrayed against each other upon
two basic issues: first, whether the petition states a sufficient cause of
action for declaratory relief; and second, whether the proposed "Caltex
Hooded Pump Contest" violates the Postal Law. We shall take these
up in seriatim.
1. By express mandate of section 1 of Rule 66 of the old Rules of
Court, which was the applicable legal basis for the remedy at the time it
was invoked, declaratory relief is available to any person "whose rights
are affected by a statute . . . to determine any question of construction
or validity arising under the . . . statute and for a declaration of his
rights thereunder" (now section 1, Rule 64, Revised Rules of Court). In
amplification, this Court, conformably to established jurisprudence on
the matter, laid down certain conditions sine qua nontherefor, to wit:

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
Showing Page:
2/49
(1) there must be a justiciable controversy; (2) the controversy must be
between persons whose interests are adverse; (3) the party seeking
declaratory relief must have a legal interest in the controversy; and (4)
the issue involved must be ripe for judicial determination (Tolentino
vs. The Board of Accountancy, et al., G.R. No. L-3062, September 28,
1951; Delumen, et al. vs. Republic of the Philippines, 50 O.G., No. 2,
pp. 576, 578-579; Edades vs. Edades, et al., G.R. No. L-8964, July 31,
1956). The gravamen of the appellant's stand being that the petition
herein states no sufficient cause of action for declaratory relief, our
duty is to assay the factual bases thereof upon the foregoing crucible.
As we look in retrospect at the incidents that generated the
present controversy, a number of significant points stand out in bold
relief. The appellee (Caltex), as a business enterprise of some
consequence, concededly has the unquestioned right to exploit every
legitimate means, and to avail of all appropriate media to advertise and
stimulate increased patronage for its products. In contrast, the
appellant, as the authority charged with the enforcement of the Postal
Law, admittedly has the power and the duty to suppress transgressions
thereof particularly thru the issuance of fraud orders, under Sections
1982 and 1983 of the Revised Administrative Code, against legally non-
mailable schemes. Obviously pursuing its right aforesaid, the appellee
laid out plans for the sales promotion scheme hereinbefore detailed. To
forestall possible difficulties in the dissemination of information
thereon thru the mails, amongst other media, it was found expedient to
request the appellant for an advance clearance therefor. However,
likewise by virtue of his jurisdiction in the premises and construing the
pertinent provisions of the Postal Law, the appellant saw a violation
thereof in the proposed scheme and accordingly declined the request. A
point of difference as to the correct construction to be given to the
applicable statute was thus reached. Communications in which the
parties expounded on their respective theories were exchanged. The
confidence with which the appellee insisted upon its position was
matched only by the obstinacy with which the appellant stood his
ground. And this impasse was climaxed by the appellant's open
warning to the appellee that if the proposed contest was "conducted, a
fraud order will have to be issued against it and all its representatives."
Against this backdrop, the stage was indeed set for the remedy
prayed for. The appellee's insistent assertion of its claim to the use of
the mails for its proposed contest, and the challenge thereto and
consequent denial by the appellant of the privilege demanded,
undoubtedly spawned a live controversy. The justiciability of the
dispute cannot be gainsaid. There is an active antagonistic assertion of
a legal right on one side and a denial thereof on the other, concerning a
real not a mere theoretical question or issue. The contenders are
as real as their interests are substantial. To the appellee, the
uncertainty occasioned by the divergence of views on the issue of
construction hampers or disturbs its freedom to enhance its business.
To the appellant, the suppression of the appellee's proposed contest
believed to transgress a law he has sworn to uphold and enforce is an
unavoidable duty. With the appellee's bent to hold the contest and the
appellant's threat to issue a fraud order therefor if carried out, the
contenders are confronted by the ominous shadow of an imminent and
inevitable litigation unless their differences are settled and stabilized
by a tranquilizing declaration (Pablo y Sen, et al. vs. Republic of the
Philippines, G.R. No. L-6868, April 30, 1955). And, contrary to the
insinuation of the appellant, the time is long past when it can rightly be
said that merely the appellee's "desires are thwarted by its own doubts,
or by the fears of others" which admittedly does not confer a cause of
action. Doubt, if any there was, has ripened into a justiciable
controversy when, as in the case at bar, it was translated into a positive
claim of right which is actually contested (III Moran, Comments on the
Rules of Court, 1963 ed., pp. 132-133, citing: Woodward vs. Fox West
Coast Theaters, 36 Ariz., 251, 284 Pac. 350).
We cannot hospitably entertain the appellant's pretense that
there is here no question of construction because the said appellant
"simply applied the clear provisions of the law to a given set of facts as
embodied in the rules of the contest", hence, there is no room for
declaratory relief. The infirmity of this pose lies in the fact that it
proceeds from the assumption that, if the circumstances here
presented, the construction of the legal provisions can be divorced
from the matter of their application to the appellee's contest. This is
not feasible. Construction, verily, is the art or process of discovering
and expounding the meaning and intention of the authors of the
law with respect to its application to a given case, where that intention
is rendered doubtful, amongst others, by reason of the fact that the
given case is not explicitly provided for in the law (Black,
Interpretation of Laws, p. 1). This is precisely the case here. Whether or
not the scheme proposed by the appellee is within the coverage of the
prohibitive provisions of the Postal Law inescapably requires an
inquiry into the intended meaning of the words used therein. To our
mind, this is as much a question of construction or interpretation as
any other.
Nor is it accurate to say, as the appellant intimates, that a
pronouncement on the matter at hand can amount to nothing more
than an advisory opinion the handing down of which is anathema to a
declaratory relief action. Of course, no breach of the Postal Law has as
yet been committed. Yet, the disagreement over the construction
thereof is no longer nebulous or contingent. It has taken a fixed and
final shape, presenting clearly defined legal issues susceptible of
immediate resolution. With the battle lines drawn, in a manner of
speaking, the propriety nay, the necessity of setting the dispute at
rest before it accumulates the asperity distemper, animosity, passion
and violence of a full-blown battle which looms ahead (III Moran,
Comments on the Rules of Court, 1963 ed., p. 132 and cases cited),
cannot but be conceded. Paraphrasing the language in Zeitlin vs.
Arnebergh 59 Cal., 2d., 901, 31 Cal. Rptr., 800, 383 P. 2d., 152, cited in
22 Am. Jur., 2d., p. 869, to deny declaratory relief to the appellee in the
situation into which it has been cast, would be to force it to choose
between undesirable alternatives. If it cannot obtain a final and
definitive pronouncement as to whether the anti-lottery provisions of
the Postal Law apply to its proposed contest, it would be faced with
these choices: If it launches the contest and uses the mails for purposes
thereof, it not only incurs the risk, but is also actually threatened with
the certain imposition, of a fraud order with its concomitant stigma
which may attach even if the appellee will eventually be vindicated; if it
abandons the contest, it becomes a self-appointed censor, or permits
the appellant to put into effect a virtual fiat of previous censorship
which is constitutionally unwarranted. As we weigh these
considerations in one equation and in the spirit of liberality with which
the Rules of Court are to be interpreted in order to promote their object
(section 1, Rule 1, Revised Rules of Court) which, in the instant case,
is to settle, and afford relief from uncertainty and insecurity with
respect to, rights and duties under a law we can see in the present
case any imposition upon our jurisdiction or any futility or prematurity
in our intervention.
The appellant, we apprehend, underrates the force and binding
effect of the ruling we hand down in this case if he believes that it will
not have the final and pacifying function that a declaratory judgment is
calculated to subserve. At the very least, the appellant will be bound.
But more than this, he obviously overlooks that in this jurisdiction,
"Judicial decisions applying or interpreting the law shall form a part of
the legal system" (Article 8, Civil Code of the Philippines). In effect,
judicial decisions assume the same authority as the statute itself and,
until authoritatively abandoned, necessarily become, to the extent that
they are applicable, the criteria which must control the actuations not
only of those called upon to abide thereby but also of those in duty
bound to enforce obedience thereto. Accordingly, we entertain no
misgivings that our resolution of this case will terminate the
controversy at hand.
It is not amiss to point out at this juncture that the conclusion we
have herein just reached is not without precedent. In Liberty Calendar
Co. vs. Cohen, 19 N.J., 399, 117 A. 2d., 487, where a corporation
engaged in promotional advertising was advised by the county
prosecutor that its proposed sales promotion plan had the
characteristics of a lottery, and that if such sales promotion were
conducted, the corporation would be subject to criminal prosecution, it
was held that the corporation was entitled to maintain a declaratory
relief action against the county prosecutor to determine the legality of
its sales promotion plan. In pari materia, see also: Bunis vs. Conway,
17 App. Div. 2d., 207, 234 N.Y.S. 2d., 435; Zeitlin vs. Arnebergh,
supra; Thrillo, Inc. vs. Scott, 15 N.J. Super. 124, 82 A. 2d., 903.
In fine, we hold that the appellee has made out a case for
declaratory relief.
2. The Postal Law, chapter 52 of the Revised Administrative Code,
using almost identical terminology in sections 1954(a), 1982 and 1983

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
Showing Page:
3/49

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
End of Preview - Want to read all 49 pages?
Access Now
Unformatted Attachment Preview
G.R. No. L-19650             September 29, 1966CALTEX (PHILIPPINES), INC., petitioner-appellee,  vs. ENRICO PALOMAR, in his capacity as THE POSTMASTER GENERAL, respondent-appellant.           In the year 1960 the Caltex (Philippines) Inc. (hereinafter referred to as Caltex) conceived and laid the groundwork for a promotional scheme calculated to drum up patronage for its oil products. Denominated "Caltex Hooded Pump Contest", it calls for participants therein to estimate the actual number of liters a hooded gas pump at each Caltex station will dispense during a specified period. Employees of the Caltex (Philippines) Inc., its dealers and its advertising agency, and their immediate families excepted, participation is to be open indiscriminately to all "motor vehicle owners and/or licensed drivers". For the privilege to participate, no fee or consideration is required to be paid, no purchase of Caltex products required to be made. Entry forms are to be made available upon request at each Caltex station where a sealed can will be provided for the deposit of accomplished entry stubs.           A three-staged winner selection system is envisioned. At the station level, called "Dealer Contest", the contestant whose estimate is closest to the actual number of liters dispensed by the hooded pump thereat is to be awarded the first prize; the next closest, the second; and the next, the third. Prizes at this level consist of a 3-burner kerosene stove for first; a t ...
Purchase document to see full attachment
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Anonymous
Really great stuff, couldn't ask for more.

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4